Cotton

Giorgio Riello is Professor of Global History at the University of Warwick and a member of Warwick's Global History and Culture Centre. He is the author of A Foot in the Past (2006) and has co-edited several books including The Spinning World (2009), How India Clothed the World (2009) and Global Design History (2011). In 2009 he received the Newcomen Prize in Business History, and in 2010 he was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize.

1. Introduction: cotton textiles and global history; Part I. The First Cotton Revolution – A Centrifugal System, c.1000–1500: 2. Selling to the world: India and the old cotton system; 3. 'Wool growing on wild trees' – the global reach of cotton; 4. The world's best – cotton manufacturing and the advantage of India; Part II. Learning and Connecting – Making Cottons Global, c.1500–1750: 5. The Indian apprenticeship – Europeans trading in Indian cottons; 6. New consuming habits – how cotton entered European houses and wardrobes; 7. From Asia to America – cottons in the Atlantic world; 8. Learning and substituting – printing textiles in Europe; Part III. The Second Cotton Revolution – A Centripetal System, c.1750–2000: 9. Cotton, slavery and plantations in the New World; 10. Competing with India – cotton and European industrialisation; 11. 'The wolf in sheep's clothing' – the potential of cotton; 12. Global outcomes – the West and the new cotton system; 13. Conclusion – from system to system, from divergence to convergence.